Russia threatens to block Twitter over child pornography and posts about child suicide
Russian authorities on Tuesday said they are prepared to block Twitter in a month’s time if the social media giant does not comply with demands to remove upwards of 3,000 posts of banned content, AP reports.
Driving the news: Russia claims Twitter failed to heed previous warnings to remove posts about child suicide and pornography, and information about drugs. Authorities in the country have a fraught relationship with social media platforms, which for years have provided a forum for political dissent.
What they’re saying: “Twitter doesn’t react to our requests appropriately, and if things go on like this, then in a month it will be blocked, on an out-of-court basis,” said Vadim Subbotin, deputy chief of Russia’s telecommunications regulator.
- The Russian government last week said it would slow access to Twitter to “protect Russian citizens,” claiming the site failed to remove illegal content.
The big picture: Russian authorities have long looked askance at the role platforms like Twitter in mobilizing protestors. In 2019, Russia moved to assert more control over its domestic internet by severing itself from the global internet.
Arizona governor slams VP Kamala Harris as ‘worst possible choice’ for handling border crisis
‘Joe Biden has broken our border’
President Joe Biden tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to head the administration’s efforts to resolve the current border crisis. Biden said of Harris on Tuesday, “I can think of nobody who is better qualified to do this.”
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey vehemently disagrees that Harris is the right person to handle the immigration crisis and went so far as to declare the vice president to be the “worst possible choice” for remedying the massive migrant surge at the U.S. southern border.
During a news conference Wednesday, Ducey weighed in on Harris being assigned to tackle the border crisis.
“She’s about the worst possible choice that one could make,” Ducey told reporters. “In no point in her career has she given any indication that she considers the border a problem or a serious threat.”
“If President Biden’s intent was to show that he’s taking this issue seriously, he’s really done the exact opposite,” the Republican governor stated, adding that President Biden had “completely trivialized the issue by putting someone in charge who flat out just doesn’t care.”
Harris admitted Wednesday that the border situation is a “huge problem.”
“I’m not going to pretend it’s not. It’s a huge problem,” Harris told CBS News. “Are we looking at overcrowding at the border in particular of these kids? Yes.”
Harris received condemnation earlier this week for appearing to laugh off a question about whether she will be visiting the border. “Not today,” Harris joked before laughing. “But I have before, and I’m sure I will again.”
Razor Wire Fence Comes Down At Capitol Hill
Washington DC at least doesn’t appear to be a totalitarian nightmare state on the surface anymore
Washington DC at least doesn’t appear to be a totalitarian nightmare state on the surface anymore after US Capitol Police took down the outer perimeter razor wire-topped fencing that has been in place for two months.
The public will be allowed to enter the grounds once again.
The announcement was made Wednesday, with a disclaimer that security can be ramped back up at any time, presumably if Democrats declare there is some sort of batshit crazy non-existent QAnon threat.
The inner fencing remains in place around the Capitol building itself, with USCP claiming that repairs are still taking place and security is being strengthened.
“The inner perimeter fence, around the Capitol Building, is still in place, while the Department works with our congressional stakeholders and law enforcement partners to strengthen our security posture,” the Capitol Police said in a statement.
As we highlighted, there were efforts to make the fence, which looked like something out of Mad Max, permanent.
While the fence may have gone for now, a Democrat ‘task force’ is pushing for a permanent military security force be stationed around Capitol Hill.
As conservatives such as Tucker Carlson have warned, the troops are not going away, they are there to “prop up the regime”.
Cancel Culture Comes for All: How 10-Year-Old Tweets Cost This Journalist Her Job
- In 2019, McCammond publicly acknowledged the tweets and apologized, likely hoping that the act of contrition would protect her from further reputational harm.
- Out of the numerous faults the woke left has, the complete lack of forgiveness for offense may be its most dangerous.
- The rules that cancel mobs once gleefully wielded against their foes are now being turned on them.
The rules that cancel mobs once gleefully wielded against their foes are now being turned on them.
Alexi McCammond, 27, was widely considered an up-and-coming young journalist after her time working as a political commentator for Axios news.
She had been hired as the new editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue magazine and was all set to start, before it was revealed that she had made some tweets that many considered anti-Asian and homophobic when she was 17 years old.
This wasn’t the first time the tweets had come up. In 2019, McCammond publicly acknowledged the tweets and apologized, likely hoping that the act of contrition would protect her from further reputational harm.
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Her gambit failed.
Upon hearing McCammond was going to be their new boss, angry members of the Teen Vogue staff demanded blood and called on Teen Vogue’s parent company, Condé Nast, to cut ties with her.
Initially these efforts to have McCammond fired were refused. The tweets were public knowledge when McCammond was hired, and Condé Nast seemed to believe they could weather the storm. McCammond herself apologized again, and for a moment, it almost looked like things would be fine.
Then advertisers started to pull funding.
Faced with a massive internal backlash that was now causing financial harm to the company, it was decided that McCammond and Condé Nast would have to part ways. In a statement tendering her resignation, McCammond wrote:
I became a journalist to help lift up the stories and voices of our most vulnerable communities. As a young woman of color, that’s part of the reason I was so excited to lead the Teen Vogue team in their next chapter. My past tweets have overshadowed the work I’ve done to highlight the people and issues that I care about—issues that Teen Vogue has worked tirelessly to share with the world—and so Condé Nast and I have decided to part ways.
Elizabeth Warren wealth tax would shrink US economy by 1.2%, according to a new analysis
So-called ‘ultra-millionaire tax’ would slash US GDP over next 30 years
Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s plan to tax the net worth of the wealthiest Americans could reduce U.S. economic growth by 1.2% over the next 30 years, according to a new analysis published this week.
The so-called “ultra-millionaire tax” would slash the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — the market value of all the goods and services produced within the U.S. — by 0.6% in 2031 and 0.8% in 2040, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis. The tax would also have a detrimental effect on wages, reducing the hourly rate by 0.7% in 20313, 1% in 2040 and 1.2% in 2050, the model shows.
Warren’s proposal, which is nearly identical to the wealth tax that she introduced during her failed 2020 presidential campaign, would impose a 2% annual tax on the net worth of U.S. households above $50 million and would add an additional 1% levy on households worth more than $1 billion.
The Massachusetts Democrat estimates the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would affect about 100,000 households in the U.S., or roughly 0.05% of the population, and would generate about $3 trillion in revenue over the next decade based on estimates from Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists at the University of California, Berkeley.
But the Penn Wharton researchers estimated that Warren’s tax on the top sliver of rich U.S. households would raise about $2.1 trillion over the next decade — almost $1 trillion less than she projected.
In an effort to prevent wealthy Americans from dodging the tax, the bill would create a 40% tax on net worth above $50 million for people who renounce their U.S. citizenship in order to avoid paying the fee and a 30% minimum audit rate for households subject to the tax. It would also provide the IRS with an additional $100 billion to help with enforcement.
Factoring in the new enforcement measures, Penn researchers said that her tax could raise as much as $2.4 trillion, slightly closer in line with Warren’s own projections.
Warren has suggested the money could go toward investments in child care and early education, K-12 and infrastructure, “all of which are priorities of President Biden and Democrats in Congress,” she said recently.
Still, it’s unclear whether the Biden administration supports a wealth tax. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the White House is open to such a levy, but could achieve a similar result with other taxes that Biden proposed during the 2020 presidential campaign.
That includes raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, increasing the income tax rate on individuals earning more than $400,000, expanding the estate tax, creating a higher capital gains tax rate for individuals earning at least $1 million annually and paring back tax preferences for so-called pass-through businesses.
Christians Seriously Injured in Mob Assault on House Church
NEW DELHI (Morning Star News) A mob armed with axes and thick wooden batons in central India disrupted a home worship service and beat and threatened Christians for leaving their ancestral tribal religion this month, sources said.
Eight Christians were injured and five of them hospitalized, including two women and a pastor who suffered head injuries and a dislocated shoulder, in the March 8 assault on a house church meeting in Surguda village, Bastar District in Chhattisgarh state, said the pastor, Samson Baghel of the Methodist Church.
Methodist Church Pastor Baghel, who lives in a nearby village, and 20 other Christians from surrounding areas had come to the home of Jaggu Kashyap for the meeting with the only three Christian families who live in Surguda village. Five of the Christians attacked sustained head injuries.
“Some church members caught hold of my hand and asked me to escape, but I said I will not leave the church members to face the tribulation alone,” Pastor Baghel told Morning Star News. “After I fell on the ground when struck twice on my head and my shoulders, church members pulled me aside, and I helplessly watched Jaggu and his family being beaten till blood oozed out of their bodies.”
Report: Illegal immigrants to receive more than $4 billion in stimulus checks as part of Biden’s COVID relief bill
Millions of illegal aliens are in line to be paid
Millions of illegal immigrants residing in the United States are set to receive $1,400 stimulus checks as part of Biden’s coronavirus relief package, according to a new report published this week by the Center for Immigration Studies.
In the report released Monday, the think tank determined that as much as $4.38 billion will be doled out to individuals illegally residing in the country as a part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 due to certain immigrants’ possession of Social Security numbers.
During debate over the legislation, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) took issue with that part of the bill’s language that he argued would result in payments to illegal aliens. He introduced an amendment to stop that from taking place, but the measure was quickly rejected by the Democratic majority.
At the time, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) claimed that “undocumented immigrants do not have Social Security numbers, and they do not qualify for stimulus relief checks, period.”
But CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota responded to Durbin’s claim in the report, stating, “This is incorrect; we estimate that there are 2.65 million illegal immigrants who have Social Security numbers that allow them to receive stimulus checks. We estimate that 2.1 million of these individuals have incomes low enough to qualify for checks, and they have 1.1 million U.S.-born dependent children.”
“As a result, illegal immigrants could receive an estimated $4.38 billion in cash payments from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,” he concluded.
What else?
In its report, CIS listed several situations in which illegal aliens could be in possession of valid SSNs, since they are often issued the number upon being granted work authorizations by the U.S. government.
“There are 653,000 illegal immigrants with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and 411,000 with Temporary Protected Status (TPS),” CIS noted, adding, “In FY 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued 882,000 work authorizations and Social Security numbers to other illegal immigrants. Among the categories eligible are adjustment of status, suspension of deportation, and asylum applicants, as well as those given withholding of removal, deferred action (non-DACA), and parolees.”
All of these individuals, CIS reported, can be considered temporarily present without status and could be subject to removal at any time. However, under the current system, they are eligible to receive certain benefits such as Earned Income Tax Credit and COVID relief checks due to their possession of a Social Security number.
President Joe Biden Holding Press Conference After 65 Days
President Biden has gone 65 days without holding a press conference since taking office on January 20 despite vowing transparency and accessibility to the press.
The 78-year-old commander-in-chief is holding his first press conference Thursday afternoon after 65 days. His silence, from a press conference standpoint, has shattered records, taking longer to hold a press conference than the last two presidents combined.
“During his campaign, Joe Biden said interacting with the press is a ‘really important part of his responsibility as an elected official.’ But here we are at day 65 and Biden is only just giving his FIRST press conference,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) said in a statement ahead of the highly anticipated presser while noting that Biden is the “first president in at least 100 years to wait this long to hold a press conference this far into their term.”
“While Joe Biden has been hiding in the basement waiting for direction from his handlers, the American people have been waiting for him to answer a long list of questions,” the NRSC continued, providing a lengthy list of sample inquiries for Biden touching a range of issues, from the migrant crisis to the coronavirus.
